Summary:
- NFP employment change comes in better than expected at 200k
- Other US data also support USD which looks to break 6-week losing streak
- Precious metals tumble with large selling in Silver and Gold
- DE30 has worst week in more than a year; falls below 12800
- Bitcoin tumbles alongside other cryptos but looks to bounce
The eagerly anticipated US NFP report has come in better than expected with a strong headline print and above forecast wage figures. The headline reading showed 200k jobs had been added in the month of January, above both the expected (181k) and prior (148k). Earlier in the week we got a solid ADP report of 234k and whilst this represent a small drop on the previous of 242k it is impressively high nonetheless.
The final US economic data of the week has provided further good news for the US dollar with an increase in both sentiment and industrial activity being announced not long after the pleasing NFP report. The rise in the buck can be seen in the commodity space also with significant declines seen in Oil, Gold and Silver.
Gold has dropped by more than 1.5% on the day with the precious metal tumbling back below the $1330 mark. A technical overview of the market can be found here.
Taking a look at the DE30 chart one can see that after a huge decline yesterday benchmark closed in the vicinity of 12900 pts support level that was used as the lower bound of the late-2017 consolidation range. Today has seen a stepper decline and looks set to post a weekly close below this prior support which could signal a major break lower – just over a week after we had a false break higher.
Bitcoin was also losing ground at a rapid rate earlier, with price falling to its lowest level in over 2 months. The market has attempted to bounce after moving below the 8000 handle and trades back near 9000 on the European close. Whether this is a dead cat bounce or the start of a recovery will likely be seen in the coming days.